My Experience Abroad

1. Please provide a brief description of your STEP Signature Project. Write two or three sentences describing the main activities your STEP Signature Project entailed.

My signature project was a month-long study abroad trip to Budapest. During our stay, we also explored other parts of Hungary as well as took weekend trips to Bratislava, Warsaw and Vienna. The program included tours, museum visits and other cultural immersions in addition to taking classes about the history, politics, geography and languages of Hungary and the other countries we visited.

2. What about your understanding of yourself, your assumptions, or your view of the world changed/transformed while completing your STEP Signature Project? Write one or two paragraphs to describe the change or transformation that took place.

This trip allowed me to gain a larger world perspective by experiencing countries that were very different from the US and even Western Europe. During classes, we had many discussions comparing the countries that we visited. I realized that small cultural differences can have such a huge impact on different peoples’ perspectives towards life, but also realized that there were many things about people that were cross-cultural.

Our assignments also consisted of examining different spaces (i.e. parks, cafes, monuments) and seeing how they were used by different groups of people like tourists and locals. While these discussions usually started during class or as homework assignments, students on the trip started having discussions comparing the differences in each city we visited. From the history and culture to the nightlife, each city gave me a larger scope of the world through this study abroad program.

3. What events, interactions, relationships, or activities during your STEP Signature Project led to the change/transformation that you discussed in #2, and how did those affect you? Write three or four paragraphs describing the key aspects of your experiences completing your STEP Signature Project that led to this change/transformation.

One of the coolest parts of the trip was the diversity of everyone in our study abroad group. Everyone had different levels of knowledge about different topics coming into classes and tours, but we all learned from each other’s experiences throughout the program which added an unanticipated piece of the trip. Interactions with the Hungarian hostel workers, students and other locals was a very interesting experience especially when comparing subtleties in our cultures. This allowed me to really think from other peoples’ perspectives and gain a bigger understanding of the world outside the US.

As some people know better than others, Eastern European countries have some very dark history. Walking through the Terror House in Hungary and the Polin Museum in Poland stood out as two very important parts of the trip that really made me think about humanity in general and how such bad things can happen to certain groups of people without anyone intervening. It particularly strikes a chord today with the leadership in the US and shows how it is important to keep up with the news and do something about the injustices that occur.

The Baths in Budapest were one of my favorite parts of the trip, but it was also very cool to learn about how they came about and the history behind them. One of the groups on the trip put together a video project on the topic, where I learned a lot about these baths that I had already visited. My group put together our video project on paprika and its history in Hungary. While some of the other groups picked heavier topics for their video presentations, I enjoyed learning a lot about the small little niches of history that Hungary had to offer.

4. Why is this change/transformation significant or valuable for your life? Write one or two paragraphs discussing why this change or development matters and/or relates to your academic, personal, and/or professional goals and future plans

I think that everyone who can should travel internationally and explore other countries. I definitely met one of my goals of getting out of my comfort zone and gaining a larger world perspective through this trip. It made me want to travel a lot more in my future and I’ve even started a bucket list of all the places I want to visit. Before this trip, I never would have imagined that I would have loved being in other countries as much as I did. I have also shifted my perspective to focus more of my spending towards gaining great experiences rather than acquiring material things.

Completing my college degree and landing a well-paying job will allow me to travel much more in my future and I look forward to the opportunities that a degree from Ohio State will give me in that sense. However, through the STEP program, I was able to acquire the mindset of experiences over material things by studying abroad. I feel like it was overall a very transformation experience.